


Lukewarm

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Free!
Genre: Angst, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, One-Sided Tachibana Makoto/Haruka Nanase, One-Sided Yamazaki Sousuke/Matsuoka Rin, Pining, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Shower Sex, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-11 14:03:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13525815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "It’s a beautiful dream, a firm resolution; and all it has done is brought him here, finally, somewhere he never expected to be, with someone he never expected to meet, laying claim to what cold comfort he can find against the tremor of some near-stranger’s form." Resignation isn't the same thing as contentment, and relief doesn't equal satisfaction.





	Lukewarm

This isn’t what Sousuke wants.

He’s thought about it before. His imagination flourishes, spreads out from the fixed points of his past to expand into the unmeasured years of his future; Sousuke could chart out the whole trajectory of his life, if it were to be based solely on his own desires, on the dreams he has held to for so long he can’t even remember now when they first formed. He doesn’t lack clarity, doesn’t lack conviction; Sousuke has been reaching for what he wants for the last long years, pushing himself farther, harder, straining for more with every breath he takes in some belief that it’ll pay off eventually, that all his practice and struggle and effort will be worth something in the end, will earn him some final resolution. It’s a beautiful dream, a firm goal; and all it has done is brought him here, finally, somewhere he never expected to be, with someone he never expected to meet, laying claim to what cold comfort he can find against the tremor of some near-stranger’s form.

“ _Ah_.” The voice is bright, high, skipping to near-shrillness as Sousuke’s hand tightens, as his grip jerks up and out-of-time with his rhythm. “Fuck.”

“Be quiet,” Sousuke says, his words low and soft enough to meet his own demands. “Someone will hear us.”

“Ah,” the other says. Sousuke can feel the shudder of tension run through the broad shoulders before him; too solid, too wide, but the closest thing he can find to what it is he really wants. “Sorry.”

Sousuke shakes his head; a rejection of the apology as much as of the need for it. It’s not their brief privacy he’s concerned with and he knows it; it’s that it’s impossible to pretend that voice is the one he wants when he hears it echo back to him, when it’s jumping too high for even the splash of the shower running around them to soften down to the grate of the tone that has so stirred Sousuke’s dreams up till now. The thought makes Sousuke’s stomach twist, knots guilt down in his belly right alongside the miserable arousal that has brought him to this point in the first place; he grits his teeth on whatever voice he might give to it, and ducks his head down, and presses his forehead hard against the flex of that shower-wet shoulder before him as he resumes the desperate stroke of his hand. It’s easier, if his eyes are shut, easier if he’s not seeing the shift of unfamiliar muscle before him, easier if he’s not watching water drip off hair too pale to ever come close to the red he wants, even soaked through with the water splashing over them both. If Sousuke presses close enough, if he squeezes his eyes shut and pants rapidly enough, he can drown reality in the things that are the same: the smell of chlorine, the damp of water, the pull of elastic in the swimsuit he’s so hastily pushed aside to close his fingers to a grip on the heat of the other boy’s cock. Those details are the same, they slot into place against the frayed-thin edges of Sousuke’s most beloved fantasies; if he lets himself drift he can lose himself to them, to the reality of the moment and the heat in his veins while ignoring the others, the gasp of that voice and the ache of his shoulder where he’s bracing himself at the wall and the twist of unhappiness in his abdomen, sour and sick even as his cock throbs heat against the straining front of his own swimsuit. It’s a relief, of some kind, for tension so overwhelming Sousuke can’t help but give in to this; and so he tightens his grip, and he strokes faster, and he tries to hold to the edges of his fantasy even as they disintegrate under the splash of water over his body pressing close to the warmth before him.

It doesn’t take long. Sousuke’s not surprised; whatever other differences they may have, the one thing he’s absolutely certain he and Tachibana share is that desperate, frantic edge of need. He can feel it running through the broad back before him as if he’s feeling himself, can hear it in the gasp of Tachibana’s breathing catching and tangling into the pant of his own; it’s the same thing that brought them together in the first place, in the bruising crush of teeth and lips and tongues as violent and desperate as if they each intended to tear someone familiar free from a stranger’s mouth. That attempt was doomed from the start; but they’ve found something like satisfaction, for at least a moment, enough to strip the edge of agony from the constant ache of unrequited desire and bring them both to resignation once more. Sousuke can’t offer Tachibana anything more than that, any more than Tachibana can give him who he really wants; so Sousuke grits his teeth, and fists his hand, and gives the only thing he has to surrender in the form of rough friction in a clenched grip. He can feel the ache in his injured shoulder building as he braces himself, as his movements drag faster in answer to the rasp of Tachibana’s breathing under the spray of the water around them; but Tachibana is starting to shake, and Sousuke’s never been one to give up with the end in sight. He pulls harder, moves faster, urging Tachibana up and up and up the edge of arousal until:

“ _Ah_ ,” Tachibana groans. “ _Haru_ ” and he’s coming in a long, helpless shudder against Sousuke pressing to him, his cock jerking as his come splashes over the other’s hand and to the tiled floor below them to be rinsed away. Sousuke’s eyes come open, his jaw sets as his hold stutters; and then he steadies himself, and he keeps going, pulling Tachibana through the last of his orgasm with a stoic, fixed attention to the action. Tachibana shudders against the friction, his hips bucking forward to ride out the last of his release; and then he goes still, his breath catching as the first rush of relief fades into awareness. There’s a pause, a moment of quiet so complete it prickles Sousuke’s spine with self-consciousness, and then:

“Sorry,” Tachibana says, so softly the words are almost lost to the splash of the water over them. Sousuke opens his eyes and stares down at the wet of the other’s skin for a moment; and then draws back, lifting his hand to rinse the last proof of Tachibana’s pleasure from his fingers as he collects himself.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, his voice louder than it needs to be but the more comforting for that, like he’s grounding himself via the sound of the words resonating against the inside of his chest. “We’re not doing this to be with each other.” He draws his hand back and takes a half-step away, enough to give Tachibana the space to pull his swimsuit back up over his hips. Sousuke’s gaze fixes on the flex of that back, on the tremor of lingering heat in the other’s thighs as he moves, and when he opens his mouth to speak it’s to the shape of Tachibana’s body, to the form so close and yet so unlike the one he really wants. “It just makes you seem more like him anyway.”

Tachibana’s shoulders still, his motion hesitating for a moment as his body curves forward as if to protect itself against the blow of Sousuke’s words. Sousuke stares at the other, feeling his tongue burn with the taste of his own cruel honesty, feeling his shoulder throb as if in echo of the hurt he’s just stabbed into them both; but he doesn’t apologize, and after a moment Tachibana resumes his movement of pulling his swimsuit back on. He lifts a hand to push through his hair, the motion that of pressing water from it even though they’re still under the spray of the shower running to cold over them; and then he turns, and ducks his head, and moves to drop to his knees against the slick of the tile. Sousuke waits until Tachibana is settled, until the other is lifting his chin to look up at Sousuke standing before him; and then he steps forward, and reaches down to thumb the strain of his swimsuit off the heat of his cock. Tachibana is reaching out as quickly as Sousuke moves, his hands rising to land at the other’s hips, and Sousuke rocks forward in answer to the touch without waiting for a request. His feet brace against the tile, just an inch ahead of Tachibana’s knees pressing close against the smooth surface, and Tachibana rocks up to meet him, opening his mouth as he leans in. Sousuke lifts his head, and shuts his eyes; and for the first moment of contact, he can almost imagine it’s Rin’s mouth sliding down over him to press the heat of friction in and against his cock.

Sousuke reaches out to press his hand flat against the wall in front of him and lifts his other to brace against the back of Tachibana’s head. He keeps his eyes shut, and he lets the heat of the other’s movement over him rush out to fill up all the shadowy corners of his body. His imagination is flickering, inventing half-formed images and discarding them as quickly, offering up illusions that give way like water parting to an outstretched hand; but it doesn’t matter, anyway, because pure instinct is rising up to take control of Sousuke’s thoughts and wipe his awareness blessedly free of anything else. There’s friction sliding over him, heat and wet and dragging pressure against the length of his cock pushing in to drag against the head; and when Sousuke’s breath catches it’s on heat instead of pain, on arousal instead of guilt. His fingers curl into too-short hair, his chest tightens on voiceless heat; and when he comes it’s silently, with his lips open on no one’s name at all, on nothing but the full-body jolt of pleasure pulling from him to spill over Tachibana’s tongue.

Sousuke’s hips flex forward, his rhythm stuttering as he gasps through the tension of his orgasm; and then the heat eases, the pleasure gives way, and he comes back to himself, to the tile under his feet and the ache in his shoulder and the cool of the water splashing over his back and against the line of his spine. Sousuke opens his eyes, staring straight ahead at the pattern in the shower wall before him while he collects himself; and then he straightens and lets his hand at the other’s hair fall as he balances over his own feet again. Tachibana pulls off him with deliberate intention, pressing his lips close to suck Sousuke clean as he goes, and Sousuke reaches to tug his swimsuit back into place as Tachibana presses a hand to his mouth and swallows hard. Sousuke looks down at Tachibana in front of him, his knees pressing to the tile and his head bowed to hide his face; and then he reaches out to offer a hand to the other. Tachibana glances up at him, green eyes meeting Sousuke’s blue for just a moment; and then he ducks his head, and reaches to close his hand around the other’s.

“Thanks,” he murmurs, his voice soft under the sound of the shower. Sousuke doesn’t answer, just pulls to urge the other to his feet in one smooth motion. Tachibana keeps his head ducked down even once he’s on his feet; for his part Sousuke only spares the other a glance before looking back over Tachibana’s shoulder towards the water falling behind him. There’s a pause, then:

“I’ll see you later, then,” Tachibana says, sounding so hesitant the words are almost a question more than a statement.

“Yeah,” Sousuke says; and then, with the drag of a humorless smile at his lips: “Same time next race.” Tachibana coughs something that might be a laugh and sounds a little like a whimper; and then he ducks his head in a nod, and turns to move away and out of the shower. Sousuke waits until the other is well clear of him and on his way towards the door to the bathroom; it’s only then that he steps forward to claim the spray of the shower again, to lean in and brace himself against the wall while he turns the tap as hot as it will go.

The temperature barely makes it to warm against his skin, but Sousuke ducks his head and shuts his eyes to the spray all the same.


End file.
